EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Viruses are not made out of cells. A single virus particle is known as a virion, and is made up of a set of genes bundled within a protective protein shell called a capsid.

Detailed explanation-2: -Viruses do not have cells. They have a protein coat that protects their genetic material (either DNA or RNA). But they do not have a cell membrane or other organelles (for example, ribosomes or mitochondria) that cells have.

Detailed explanation-3: -Because they can’t reproduce by themselves (without a host), viruses are not considered living. Nor do viruses have cells: they’re very small, much smaller than the cells of living things, and are basically just packages of nucleic acid and protein.

Detailed explanation-4: -In its infective form, outside the cell, a virus particle is called a virion. Each virion contains at least one unique protein synthesized by specific genes in its nucleic acid. Viroids (meaning “viruslike") are disease-causing organisms that contain only nucleic acid and have no structural proteins.

Detailed explanation-5: -As viruses have no ribosomes, mitochondria, or other organelles, they are completely dependent on their cellular hosts for energy production and protein synthesis. They replicate only within cells of the host that they infect.